Written by Ava Boorn

When someone Googles my name, one of the first links to pop up is an article about my elementary school. To summarize, Shadow Lake Elementary held an annual year-long read-a-thon with a school-wide grand prize. During kindergarten, the grand prize was for the dean of students and two of the teachers to kiss a pig.

Thanks to the other kids and me–who were included among the top readers– we reached the goal and they indeed gave the pig a kiss each in front of the whole school. Seeing my name as the top reader out of all the other kindergartners confused me.

How was my name first? Reading did not come easily to me. I spent so much time outside of school in my reading tutor’s living room where a light yellow colored wooden table with two kitchen table chairs and a bookshelf were all placed by the front window. Sitting in the chair side by side the tutor a few days each week, but that started the next year in first grade.

I don’t remember how I accomplished this, but what I do remember from kindergarten is sitting in the back left corner table in the classroom by myself. I would write stories out of stamps because I couldn’t spell well like the other kids. Even now I confuse spell check on a daily basis.

One in five students have a learning disability, with dyslexia being the most common, according to the Learning Disability Resource Foundation. Also, 25% to 65% of children with dyslexia have a parent who is dyslexic.

My mom is dyslexic. And as far as I know, I am too. Unfortunately, I don’t know for sure, as I was never diagnosed by a doctor even with the signs being present in my reading, writing and focus habits. I still struggle with spelling, I mix up my left and right, I confuse similar-looking words, and have trouble maintaining concentration.

My mom acting as the brave and caring person she is is the reason I was able to have the extra help outside of the public school district, Tahoma to be specific. My parent’s care is one of the reasons my two brothers and I were able to get the educational help we individually needed.

To her past, present and future elementary students she is Mrs. Boorn. The teacher who helps children with low reading scores succeed throughout the year improving their reading levels. To me, she is the person I watched work day and night raising three children in her twenties pursuing her master’s degree in education. Sure she missed sports games and school activities like music recitals because of her classes, but she was always right there within reach.

And somehow she always seems to know what the best plan of action will be when it comes to each of her children. In the same way, she knew I needed an English tutor to help me advance my reading and writing skills beyond what was the ability of a school teacher with 30 students. I needed one-on-one time with a specialist; that is how I got to know my tutor.

The reading tutor my mom found for me at the time worked in the surrounding school districts with my mom as a substitute teacher and as an instructional assistant otherwise known as a para. Her name is (I forgot her name it’s been too long…oops) what is important is what she was able to teach me; to love reading.

I looked up to my older brother, Owen who would read a new book a week without help. Never having to hesitate on words or skip a word because there were too many letters. I wanted to have bookshelves like his, stacked full of colorful books, having to try any which way to shove in another.

In my own way, I have accomplished that childhood goal. I have so many books there are stacks around my room, I have to keep all the books I’ve read on a separate shelve at my parents. Most importantly I don’t have to pretend I’ve read the book so I can fit in with the other kids. No more do I have to read the first few chapters and then skip to the ending because my library loan was due.

If I were face to face with a kindergarten me and told her these things she won’t have to do in the future to feel like she fits in with her classmates, she wouldn’t believe me. It would scrabble up her view of the world all because on her own in the future she’ll be able to read 90 books in a year. A total of 90 chapter books, no pictures just words in a year.

The impossible was made possible all thanks to my mom and my English tutor. And please forgive me for the days I wasn’t grateful at that age I didn’t realize just how magnificent the gift of reading is.

The reading list was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Katie McNabb

Sneakers squeaking against a dusty gym floor, a stinky backpack full of knee pads, ankle braces and old protein bar wrappers and complaints from players as they struggle to put up the net. Together, these built up what was my second home for many years: the volleyball court.

Volleyball was one of the biggest parts of my life growing up; however, like many childhood passions, it eventually became a commitment I could no longer make. Leaving the sport was like saying goodbye to a childhood friend who was moving away.

For many years, I longed for a way to reconnect with the thing that had been such a huge part of my life growing up, but it wasn’t until I saw a job posting for a coaching position that I actually felt some hope for a return to my childhood passion. When I stepped into the gym a week later to coach my new team for the very first time, it was like I had walked through a time machine, and a little piece of me that I didn’t even know was missing had been put back in its place.

From soccer cleats to knee pads

Growing up as a soccer kid, I was not happy when my mom told me she was taking me to a volleyball club open house to learn about the teams that were recruiting. At the time, I’m sure it’s because I thought I was “so committed” to soccer, and volleyball wasn’t a very cool sport, but looking back, I know I was just scared of stepping out of my comfort zone.

That fear quickly dissipated, though, when a couple of older club players walked into the warehouse with perfect high ponytails tied in cute ribbons and athletic, yet somehow super cute, outfits composed of slides, joggers and sweatshirts.

Volleyball quickly became very cool.

I wanted to be those girls, which meant trying out for a team, so that’s exactly what I did.

That year I joined a developmental club team, a team designed for new players that is meant to be less competitive and more focused on teaching the fundamentals of volleyball. By the end of the season I had bought every bit of volleyball gear, and I was spending an hour each day practicing serving against my garage.

The dream of becoming an all-star volleyball player had seated itself deep in my mind and heart.

A growing passion

My love for volleyball only grew over the next few years.

In my second year of playing, I joined a more competitive club team with some of my friends from school, and when I wasn’t playing for my club team, I was doing camps or skills clinics. I don’t think a day went by that I didn’t play for at least a few minutes, unless I was sick or out of the country.

I decorated my room with volleyball stickers, pillows, blankets and posters, and I was the proud owner of more volleyballs than one person could ever need.

I’d pretty much made the sport my entire personality.

On top of that, volleyball had become a huge bonding activity for me and my dad. He loved taking me to camps and watching me play from the side — he took me to watch nearby college games, and we played together in my yard on more evenings than I can count.

In many ways, I think the way volleyball brought my dad and I so much closer was one of the biggest reasons I loved playing so much.

It wasn’t long before the thing I had once loved more than anything else became one of the biggest sources of my anxiety and insecurity.

When an escape becomes a trap

Near the end of eighth grade and my fourth year playing volleyball, I started to struggle with anxiety and a lot of negative self-image issues.The more I struggled with my mental health, the more I struggled with playing volleyball.

I suddenly took it very personally when a coach or teammate criticized my playing (even if it was in a constructive way), and I no longer had the confidence to be loud on the court — something all good volleyball players have to do.

If these struggles didn’t permanently damage my relationship with volleyball, the next club team I played for certainly did.

The team I played for the following year was run by two coaches who seemed to love nothing more than using our practices to show off how good they were and making us run lines until we had tears in our eyes.

I hate that I let one team have such a big impact on my feelings toward volleyball, but I also know there’s a lot of evidence to show that coaches tend to be one of the main contributors to their players’ loss of confidence, and that’s exactly what happened with me. So when it came time to try out for a team the following year, I cried to my dad and told him I didn’t want to play club again.

He kindly told me it was OK and I shouldn’t do anything I didn’t want to do, but I still knew he was a little disappointed.

I played for my high school the following year, but a year off from club proved to be pretty detrimental to my growth as a player.

When it came time for us to play the last game of the season, somewhere deep inside I knew it was the last real game of volleyball I’d ever play.

I was right.

I decided not to try out for the team my senior year of high school, knowing my chances of making varsity at a school with dozens of state championship titles under its belt were slim, and that even if I did make it, I wasn’t sure I’d have any fun.

I wasn’t playing volleyball for the first time in seven years, and for someone who used to dream of playing in college, that was a hard reality to swallow.

Coming back

I avoided the whole sport of volleyball for the next couple years.

Watching my school team play made me too sad, and when I got to college, I chose not to play on an intramural team because if I couldn’t play for real, I didn’t want to play at all.

As time went on, though, I started to miss it desperately. So I asked friends to play with me when the weather was nice, and I even joined an intramural team when they started up again after school went back in person.

Even though the team was casual and certainly not all that skilled, it reminded me how fun it is to play as part of a team.

As I began my final year of college, and was overwhelmed with all the adult decisions I was having to make, I started looking for open coaching positions, desperate for a fun escape during one of the most stressful times of my life. At first I found nothing, but just when my stress and anxiety started to reach its peak, I saw an open position for a club volleyball coach.

I applied and was hired the following week.

After hearing I got the job, I experienced imposter syndrome for the first time in my life. They really trusted me, someone who hadn’t played a real game of organized volleyball in four years, to coach and mentor a team of young girls?

That anxiety carried over into our first practice, where I frantically tried to remember what club practices were like when I played so I didn’t make a complete fool of myself in front of my new team.

It wasn’t long before it all came back to me and pretty soon, I was running drills and planning team bonding events as if I’d never left. With each passing week, I saw how my coaching was impacting the girls, not just as players, but as people too.

Whether it was lessons on hard work, leadership or treating each other with kindness, coaching this team showed me how playing sports teaches us to be better at much more than just the sport itself. This is part of what makes playing sports so beneficial, especially at a young age.

Coaching this team and watching many of the girl’s experiences playing club volleyball for the first time helped me to reconnect with myself at their age before my relationship with the sport was damaged by outside factors.

So after walking off the court as the coach of this team for the very last time, I can only hope I was able to have a positive impact on them and their experience with volleyball so they might be able to continue loving it like I wish I had been able to.

Stepping onto the other side of the net was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Briana Tuvey

Content Warning: This article contains stories and descriptions of childhood abuse that may be harmful or traumatizing to readers. Please proceed with caution.

A man with bright orange hair opens the door. Your parents stand behind you as he introduces himself as a staff member at the therapeutic boarding school you are about to attend. You are nervous, but hopeful, as the website was friendly and it looked as though the school will help guide you through the challenges you have been facing.

But this is not the case. As soon as your parents leave the nice man with bright orange hair changes. His demeanor becomes strict and mean, the atmosphere is cold and dull and your hope for the future fades as he tells you to undress for a mandatory strip search. This was the experience of Saturn and many other teens sent into the troubled teen industry.

Each year, an estimated 50,000 kids are taken into the troubled teen industry, consisting of wilderness camps, rehabilitation programs, religious facilities and therapeutic boarding schools. These teens are sent for various reasons ranging from mental health issues to forms of misbehavior. Research like this is made by survivors themselves like Jamie, who experienced trauma in the troubled teen industry.

Many of these treatment centers are still active today, and are largely unregulated with no federal oversight, according to the American Bar Association. Trauma resulting from these treatments include going back to previous behaviors, PTSD, changes and difficulties in relationships and many more.

When they were 13 years old, Jamie experienced multiple facilities in the troubled teen industry due to mental health issues, including a wilderness program, a residential treatment center and a therapeutic boarding school.

After leaving the programs, Jamie started researching the industry to show the long-term effects of these programs and spread awareness of this major issue.

People coming out on social media about these programs started a survivor-led campaign called #BreakingCodeSilence, which encouraged people to speak out about their experiences. They work to present research about the industry as well as help survivors and families going through a hard time.

BreakingCodeSilence is sponsoring the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, to end children’s abuse in residential treatment centers. This bill would give more transparency when it comes to youth treatment programs, especially when it comes to identifying and preventing institutional child abuse.

Saturn , now 23, was sent to a therapeutic boarding school when they were 15. After struggling with mental health issues for some time, Saturn turned to drugs. Their parents decided they needed help and looked into boarding schools to help Saturn through this hard time. After looking at the website, which was filled with pictures of people smiling and a beautiful atmosphere filled with scenic woods and pristine water, Saturn decided to go voluntarily.

“[My parents] showed me the website and I was like, ‘Oh this looks great. They have horseback riding and we are going to do fun stuff, I am totally down for this,’” Saturn said.

After saying goodbye to their parents at the facility in Montana, the excitement changed as the demeanor of the staff went from friendly and inviting to strict and dark. After a strip search and intake, Saturn was told the rules and was brought down to meet with the rest of the group.

Saturn said the staff would label them immediately by giving them painful nicknames that reflected the trauma they had been through.

Raelyn entered an all-girls therapeutic boarding school when she was 17 years old.

“You have no privileges and you’re with the staff all the time. You have the least possible amount of freedoms,” she said.

Raelyn also discussed the different forms of therapy the boarding school provided, some of which made the girls relive past traumatic experiences.

“They would create these psychological simulations that were individualized for each girl based on their intimate trauma histories and essentially, in the name of therapy, try to re-traumatize us and force us to have a breakthrough,” she said.

During their time at the school, Saturn experienced physical, verbal and mental abuse through punishments, restraint and name-calling.

The most common form of punishment was called “solo,” where staff members would grab a chair, put it in the corner of the room and force patients to sit there for a minimum of 24 hours. This punishment could last up to months. Bathroom breaks consisted of being watched by a staff member and the meals would be the scraps of everyone else, according to Saturn.

“There was one morning where I laughed too loud and a staff member asked me to get in the chair,” Saturn said. “I refused to get in the chair and that caused a group shutdown, which is when someone refuses to take a consequence. The whole group has to go downstairs, and then they restrain you and physically assault you or force you to sit in the chair.”

Not only were the kids abused during punishments, the staff, who were not trained to handle kids in these situations, would physically restrain them in harsh ways, Saturn said.

Saturn recalls seeing staff physically abuse a girl for not wanting to sit in the chair. The girl ultimately left due to this situation as she was deemed too much of a liability.

Most of the kids were deemed troubled from the start. Staff members wouldn’t trust them when they asked for mental help or were sick, and assumed they were being manipulated by the patients. Due to this, the kids wouldn’t get the care they need, which caused them further mental and physical pain.

“One time, I was struggling, and I tried to tell the staff about how I was feeling and she was like, ‘Are you on your period?’,” Jamie said.

Like Saturn and Jamie, Raelyn also experienced untrained staff who don’t know how to deal with teens who are struggling.

“The qualifications to be [on] staff at one of these therapeutic facilities is nothing, you just need a GED for the most part. Then you just oversee and punish the girls and enforce rules,” Raelyn said.

Jamie personally experienced physical abuse by staff members.

“I was restrained physically a lot in a very painful way,” Jamie said. “That was also being done to me anytime I was having an anxiety attack or a meltdown. Even when I was doing my best to keep calm and say what I needed, they would just restrain me.”

Kids in these programs experienced restrictions on food, showers and talking with their parents, which was monitored and restricted.

“If you disclosed anything that was going on, they would hang up the phone and you’re gonna be put on a phone consequence, meaning that you won’t be able to call your parents,” Saturn said.

One of the most common punishments for kids in these programs is forced silence, leading to the advocacy hashtag, #breakingcodesilence.

“The punishment of having to be quiet and not being allowed to use your voice or speak for periods on end was common,” Raelyn said.

Saturn explained that every Saturday they had to write letters home. Workers forced the kids to smile for pictures and made sure everything stated in the letters was positive.

“You’re constantly being monitored for what you were saying,” Jamie said. “You would be punished if they heard you say something they didn’t like, or if you started crying on the phone call, they would take the phone away from you.”

In Jamie’s own research, they found these programs have been reported to discriminate based on patient gender and/or sexuality. Both Saturn and Jamie experienced this during their time in the troubled teen industry.

“There was a heavy conversion therapy aspect, which wasn’t advertised but was very much happening,” Jamie said. “There was this fear of becoming too close to someone because you would get punished or interrogated for it.”

Discovering identity was a struggle. Jamie said they didn’t get to discover their queerness, which came about nine days into their 18 months at the residential treatment center.

Saturn mentioned hearing words they had never heard before as staff verbally abused kids of color and those part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Since kids are sent to these programs with limited access to the outside world, many have no idea what is going on outside of their program.

“I didn’t know about anything that had happened until I finally got out,” Saturn said. “We didn’t have any news from the outside world. We didn’t know what was going on.”

Jamie remembers missing major aspects of pop culture and news that were happening at the time. To this day, they miss references that their friends make from missing core years of their life.

Leaving these programs is different depending on the person’s situation. Like Jamie, some leave when they “graduate,” meaning they have completed the program’s levels, and in the eyes of the staff, have changed for the better. Some, like Saturn, leave because the cost is too much for their parents to afford. Others leave on their own accord when they turn 18.

After being in several programs over three years, Jamie left trying to find themselves again.

“I just went through this severely traumatizing thing where I completely lost my sense of self,” Jamie said. “It was really confusing for me because outside life had been put on hold. I was 13, [and] in middle school when I felt like my life was put on hold. Then when I came out, I was 16 and in high school, and all my friends had grown up.”

Saturn also struggled to find themself again after being gone for about a year.

“I was expected to do all this therapeutic change, which didn’t happen because I wasn’t actually getting therapy. I was getting traumatized,” Saturn said.

After getting out, Saturn not only had to deal with the same mental health issues as before, but also struggled with Stockholm Syndrome, a coping mechanism to a captive or abusive situation. People develop positive feelings toward their captors or abusers over time.

“It felt like that program was my only comfort and my only safety in the world, even though it was extremely abusive,” Saturn said.

Raelyn, after three years of being released, finally understood she had been brainwashed after watching This Is Paris, a documentary about Paris Hilton, who also experienced trauma while being in the troubled teen industry.

“I started paying more attention to those profound feelings of grief, and the way that a lot of my freedoms were taken, and how that actually affected me,” she said. “Then I started investigating the legal side and like looking beyond just myself and my experience. I started waking up to my own experience through a perspective of research.”

Raelyn pushed through her trauma and brainwashing by creating a website with all of her research to put things into perspective, not just for herself but for other survivors.

After years of programs, Jamie was diagnosed with PTSD and still deals with it to this day.

“There has not been a single day where I haven’t thought about my time in treatment,” they said.

Time as children and teens are precious.

“Happy memories are essential to our mental health. They strengthen our sense of identity and purpose and bond our relationships,” according to the Positive Parenting Project. When these memories are turned into trauma, people’s sense of identity can diminish.

For Saturn, Jamie, Raelyn and others who have been through the troubled teen industry, gaining those identities back can be hard.

“It really stole my innocence in a way. I was exposed to so many things and I was treated terribly,” Saturn said.

Looking back at their time right after treatment, Jamie was trying to find themself but instead, they felt miserable.

Even the memories before treatment are distorted by what they went through.

“When I look back at my childhood, it is all clouded by this experience. It’s really hard for me to reach the memories that were before that,” Saturn said.

Jamie can remember things before treatment, but it feels like a whole other lifetime.

“I don’t really know who I would be if I hadn’t gone to treatment,” Jamie said. “My conscious life has been me as someone who has been through treatment, so I don’t really know myself as someone outside of that. I would really like to know myself out of that.”

The lost years was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Riley Young

I grew up in a cloud of hairspray and covered in glitter and rhinestones. Dressing up made me feel like a princess in a Disney movie. The performances were like the cherry on top of a sundae.

Being a competitive dancer was not the after-school activity my parents ever envisioned for me. Both of them grew up being athletes from a young age and became starters for their high school varsity teams. When I was 6-months-old I was already in baby swim classes and at the age of 3 I was hitting tennis balls with my dad after work.

Even now I still love playing tennis and swimming when the sun’s out. But nothing ever seemed as natural to me as moving my body to the beat of the music.

From the age of 3 to 11 years old, my dance studio became my new-found home. My dance coaches felt like my parents, the older dancers were the older siblings I never had and the bond I had with my teammates was unbreakable.

The environment at my dance studio was supportive. However, like the infamous Abby Lee Miller, my dance coach loved having a favorite dancer and letting everyone on the team know.

This type of favoritism led to some unhealthy competition between my teammates and me as we got older. This would appear in song choices for solos, nicknames, and accusations of lying if a dancer thought they had an injury. I experienced the latter.

“It was really good because it felt like a little community family,” my mom said. She was so happy to see me, a once shy and quiet kid, come out of my shell despite the constant critical feedback getting thrown in my direction.

My mom was always weary of how this atmosphere would affect me and wondered if I would become accustom to this level of negativity at such a young age. Deep down, seeing me happy and becoming stronger in the face of negativity, my mom knew that this experience will shape me into the woman I am today.

In my bank of memories, I can still remember flashes of the studio that was my home for years. The faint creaking of the smooth tattered wood floor. The blur of bodies following with the melody of a 2000s hit song. The semicircle of moms watching their children through the two-way mirror in the lobby as I rush to the bathroom to change into the clothes my mom packed in my bag.

There was always a person that I can always recognize in those memories, and it was Chloe.

For most of my time at the studio, Chloe and I were inseparable. She became the sister I never had. I never felt I was competing or comparing myself to her. We were equals in every sense of the way.

When I completed my first solo at age 8, I was a nervous wreck. Writing this brings back the same panic I had back then. My palms were sweating. I felt tears swell under my false eyelashes and my brain wouldn’t stop shouting my insecurities. “I’m going to forget this routine”, “I better not drop that cane”, and “ I’m not good enough.” My brain went still as I felt someone hug me from behind.

It was Chloe trying her best to make sure my nerves calmed. Having her there backstage made me feel the confidence that was buried underneath the well of doubt and negativity.

Even with the spotlight on me on the dark and empty stage, I never was truly alone.

However, not all friendship lasts forever.

This was a hard concept that was difficult for me to grasp as a kid. I felt Chloe’s departure was the end of communication.

Over the years, Chloe continued dancing throughout the studio circuit and through high school. I thought my own dance career would mirror Chloe’s but time was not on my side.

When I was 10-years-old, I suffered a grade two tear in my right medial meniscus. I went to doctors who told me I absolutely could not dance until we knew for certain that my knee could function in everyday life versus the strain of dancing on it for 17 hours a week. I was so worried about disappointing my coaches and teammates, that I tried my best to push through the pain.

During rehearsals, I wasn’t able to go through the motions of the dance without the twisting and painful popping in my knee. My lack of motion led to my coach having me do push-ups as punishment for making the routine look sloppy. Weeks went on and I continued to dance until the ultimate pop of my knee tore 97% of my meniscus and wedged itself behind my kneecap, locking my leg at a 130-degree angle.

Sports injuries, for people of all ages, take a toll on a body both physically and mentally. Texas Health Resources say these injuries in children can provoke many mental health issues, including anxiety and depression.

“One of the scariest things of the whole entire thing for me was when you were actually going in for surgery,” my mom said. “And laying on the gurney and you all have all these tubes and like your hair is in a net, prepping for surgery.”

My mom became my rock through my recovery process, she was everything I could have asked for and more. While I worried my dance career was over, my mom was also trying to put on a brave face for me to hide her own fear.

Recovering from an injury of that caliber at 11-years-old made me feel so empty I didn’t know how to cope with myself or the loss of my team. My sense of community had vanished with that last pop and I felt that burning flame inside me dwindle into a small flickering spark.

“I was really really upset about it, but I had to kind of be strong for you,” my mom said. “ I also wanted to get you back doing it again because people tend to build fear.”

The journey back to the dance floor was difficult because I did have fear. Over time it has diminished, but like the scar on my knee, I have a smaller scar that is marked by the fear of enduring that kind of pain again.

Over the past 10 years, I still have a small spark that is searching for a way to shine again.

I still find myself tap dancing in the aisles of the grocery store, recreating different dances from my past in the kitchen or dancing with my friends.

I thought ending my college experience would be a good way to revive my childhood hobby and find a place for it in my adult life.

As I walked up the wooden steps of the revamped dance theater over Bellingham Cider Company downtown, I looked out the window seeing the sun setting over the bay. I felt a sense of calm and familiarity sweep over me as I walked into the small dance studio. The sound of young dancers dancing to Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” The familiar smell of the old, wooden floors filled my brain. I turned over my shoulder to sign-up for the adult beginner ballet class. As I waited for the class to start, a group of giddy pre-teens sat to switch out of their well-worn jazz shoes into sandals.

As they filtered out to the studio lobby, I found my place at the ballet barre. My muscles knew before my brain knew what to do. As the class progressed, my rusty movements became more graceful. This time around I did not feel the need to be perfect. It was okay for me to not stick a pirouette or wobble in relevé. As we went across the room in groups of two, I felt that scar on my heart disappear. I ended this class with a sense of closure rather than a start of a new chapter. Looking at this experience allowed me to close this box slightly.

I say slightly because I learned it is okay to be nostalgic about a thing that may be lost. It is okay for moments to become memories. It made me feel nostalgic seeing the sense of community and bond these girls share through the bond that may last them the rest of their lives. Seeing those girls laughing and fighting over the last skittle in the jar made me feel that it is okay that these moments may not last forever, because they will forever live on in my mind.

And 5, 6, 7, 8 was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Peter French

After moving into my first apartment in September 2022, I was scavenging through the isles of a Habitat for Humanity looking for a standing lamp to brighten up my place, upon my search a clunky beige case struck my eye. It had rubber marks running along the bottom with a red sticker next to the handle. I went to lift it and it stood firmly on the shoulder-height shelf. I had to use both hands to set it down and unlock the rusted clips on either side.

I had uncovered a 1960s Kenmore Sears sewing machine. The metal body was tinted green, reminiscent of an old army uniform. The controls were still shiny and the owner’s manual was intact. It even came with a couple sets of needles and extra bobbin wheels.

Buying it was a no-brainer. I thought of my mom and how she had sewn at least half of the curtains in our house. I remembered her teaching me as well. First we made a pair of Dr. Seuss boxers, then a drawstring bag with illustrations of a bustling city. I would help my mom with her projects and look up to her in awe as fabrics draped over our dinner table, her hands moving with swift precision.

I brought the sand-toned, suitcase-looking device to my modestly decorated apartment and slapped it on the wobbly red desk that I ended up buying as well. I had forgotten everything she taught me.

At this time I hadn’t talked to my mother for over two years. As time passed, hurt feelings and anger subdued, but our relationship continued to drift apart. Late at night, I would envision the anguish I was burdening my own mother with each time I ignored her calls. I would tell myself that tomorrow would be the day I reached out.

All I managed to learn after abandoning my sewing machine for a month was how to spin a bobbin and by winter break it was sitting in the corner collecting dust.

I came home to Massachusetts that winter knowing that I should see my mom, but I feared what would happen if the walls between us were to vanish. Christmas passed and I had made no effort to reach out. My ticket was booked to fly back to Seattle on my mom’s birthday, which is New Year’s Day. The night before I left I decided I could just send her a text. I told her I loved her.

It wasn’t until April of that year when I reached out again, we spoke, we cried, and we apologized to one another for the pain we caused.

Nowadays when my mom calls, I no longer feel a pulse in my stomach. We don’t talk every day, but when I’m home she still wishes I’d stay longer. Our relationship may not be perfect, but we spend time together, we make meals, we laugh and we share memories.

Just before Thanksgiving this year I FaceTimed my mom and showed her the sewing machine I had found. She taught me how to avoid having my thread bunch in a knot when I stepped on the pedal, and she also reminded me that there is an owner’s manual with literally every instruction I needed.

My mom had sent me a care package for the holiday. Inside was an aluminum turkey pan, a book with some recipes and amongst other items, a shiny golden corduroy-looking tablecloth that we used growing up.

After skipping out on a traditional Thanksgiving meal to go camping, I decided to instead use the tablecloth to line the walls of the first bag I had made since 2009. The exterior was striped using a pair of navy corduroys that had ripped, and a pair of jeans that I had owned for years. I sketched up a pattern and didn’t stop until I set my final stitch around 2 a.m. When I would slightly press down on the pedal, the idle of the machine shook my desk so loud I imagined the upstairs neighbors thought I was pursuing some sort of midnight dentistry practice. I placed a pair of socks beneath it to mute the rumbling enough for my conscience to stay focused through the night.

I set the bag over my shoulder with a sense of accomplishment. I felt the confidence my mother had instilled, pushing me to dream about new and more complex patterns. Going through the process had resurfaced the simplest of memories, how to make a measurement, and set a pin — memories that I thought were gone.

My mom and I spoke about the night she taught me to get my machine running.

“I was thrilled, I don’t think you could have made me any happier,” she said. “Just to know that you knew that you could reach out to me if you needed help with something. [This time] it was how to thread a sewing machine, but hopefully that would translate if you ever had a bigger problem that you knew that you could reach out to me.”

Over the winter I spent hours creating patterns, finding fabrics and crafting them into tangible pieces. I would call my mom regularly from the isles of the thrift store asking if a certain lace would hold a stitch, or if I could use a skirt I found to make a beanie.

As I progressed onto more difficult pieces, I worked more efficiently and my stitches got cleaner. I learned to press my edges with an iron, and I learned it is better to go back and fix a mistake rather than try and cover it up. At times I found myself frustrated, ripping out seams that I had just sewn, but I would remember my mom telling me that sometimes you have to empty out the drawers if you really want them clean.

I am in the early stages of working on a sweatshirt for my mom. I want to show my gratitude for our relationship. With the past constantly growing, and the future shrinking away, I want to express that I am proud of the fact we shifted our roads to rejoin.

My inspiration for my mom’s design came from a sheet of fabric sitting in one of the mystery bags at Value Village. Upon ripping open the plastic I tossed aside the duds and inspected the print I had my eye on. A yellow minimalistic house made of just a few odd shapes and hearts running up the walls. The windows on the broad side of the house remind me of the days I hopped off the school bus, looking up to the window where I would see my mom with a wave or smile, welcoming me home.

Patchwork was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Sol Vandeman

Growing up, I was not your typical “boy.” With my baggy clothes and a strawberry blonde buzzcut, I fit in with most boys physically. But my feminine interests and flashy personality always shined through to tell the world that I was different.

Looking back now and having more language to describe my experiences, I was a queer, gender-nonconforming kid. So I grew up with a constant feeling of isolation, knowing that in almost any room I walked into, I would be the only kid like me. This is why when something new came up on my parent’s bulky CRT TV one day, I was captivated.

As a child, every Saturday evening I loved watching reruns of “iCarly” and “Victorious” on Nickelodeon. During one of these Saturday evenings, I came across a commercial that perfectly brought together my forbidden interests: horror and all things “girly.”

“Monster High. The perfect learning environment for teen children of legendary monsters like new student Frankie Stein,” the commercial voiceover first said.

Images of animated, fashionable teenage monsters flashed on the screen, each being introduced. From Frankie’s cheerful yet clumsy self to Cleo De Nile’s popular girl archetype, all of them showed their unique personalities through their wardrobe and adlibs. The commercial ended by inviting viewers to visit their website, where you could “enroll” in the school for monsters.

I ran to my parents, asking if I could play on our family computer. After a quick approval, I ran upstairs and sat at the family computer. My nine-year-old body leaned towards the desktop as I individually pressed the keys to spell out “M-o-n-s-t-e-r-H-i-g-h-.-c-o-m” in the search bar.

From then on, I would never leave the fangtabulous world of Monster High.

In 2010, Mattel launched Monster High, a fashion doll franchise featuring characters inspired by famous movie monsters. Each character was unique and had flaws they embraced, such as being afraid of the dark or having dry skin. At the time, Monster High was dubbed “Goth Barbie” for its edgier style that deviated from other popular fashion dolls at the time.

But what made Monster High stand out — especially for me — was its messaging. Starting in 2011, the back of the packaging of every Monster High doll had the phrase “Be Yourself. Be Unique. Be A Monster.” This slogan was about celebrating differences and letting people be who they are.

This affirming messaging was exactly what I needed at the time. It was a counternarrative to all the negative “you’re weird” or “you’re too girly” comments I’d get. For once, I was told that who I am is just fine, no matter how different I was.

Nine-year-old me was hooked. I wanted to be a part of the brand in any way I could, even if it meant breaking one of the most classic rules of the gender binary: boys can’t play with dolls.

During a trip to Target with my mom, I asked to browse the toy aisles. Usually, I would look for a new Lego set, but this time, I decided to explore the pink isles I rarely stepped foot in.

“I just want to look at something,” I told my mom as I approached the doll aisle.

I walked close to my mom as I feared weird looks and judgment from other kids and parents. After browsing through sections of Barbies and baby dolls, I made my voltageous discovery. Displays of Monster High’s “Signature” and “Dawn of the Dance” series were lined up on the shelf. Out of all the dolls, one stood out to me.

Frankie Stein, daughter of Frankenstein, was positioned inside cyan and black packaging. She had black and white streaked hair and wore a black, blue and white plaid dress with a studded belt. Amongst her mint green skin were silver stitches and bolts on her neck.

“Mom, can you get this for me?” I asked her.

She looked at the doll and hesitated for a moment.

“Fine,” she simply said, which prompted me to take a Frankie doll off the shelf and rush to check out.

Frankie was and still is my favorite character. In Monster High’s first movie, “Monster High: New Ghoul at School,” Frankie was introduced as the new kid who struggled to fit in with the other monsters. She would try being someone she’s not and dramatically fail at it.

By the end of the film, she learned that the best way to fit in was to be yourself. Frankie’s character arc and values were the ones I resonated with the most out of all the characters. Because at the end of the day, she was always willing to help her friends and wanted to bring people together (she also had killer style).

I came home from that Target trip just giddy. I would hug the thin, 11-inch doll, happy to have a piece of media that inspired me.

Over the following years, my Monster High doll collection would grow. From a steampunk robot to a mermaid-ghost hybrid, I admired each doll’s unique style and story. By the time I stopped collecting, I had over 100 dolls in my collection.

Every time I would sit down on the carpeted floor of my room to play with my dolls, I was transported to a new world. A world where I could imagine people of different backgrounds and appearances coming together. A world where your difference doesn’t exclude you, but includes you. A world that was possible.

As I grew older and my identities shifted, I was able to accept and celebrate what made me different. Monster High gave me the tools to live life as myself. I am now able to take on a world that tries to take me down because of my trans and queer identities.

Now, I’m living up to the values I learned from a group of teenage monsters.

A lifelong student at Monster High was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Jacob Mina

During the summer a child drives up to Washington, leaving behind his familiar California home. While there, he visits the Fairhaven Pharmacy, which is owned by a family friend. In the corner of the store, the child’s eyes lock onto a comic cover displaying Captain America on the front. From then on, a tradition of these Washington trips was formed alongside a burning passion for collecting comic books — a passion that lives on to this day.

This child was Pete Redpath, who is now the manager at Cosmic Games and has been collecting comic books for 45 years.

This passion for comic books, and to build a collection, was impossible while living in California as Pete felt there were no good places to buy comic books further down the coast.

This meant his trips to Ferndale were the only times he could expand his collection. Pete’s collection also stayed in Washington, so he read them repeatedly while there before having to leave them behind for the summer.

Pete explained dedicated comic bookstores were rare in the late ’70s, so people like him would go to gas stations to buy comics until the ‘80s.

In 1979, Pete’s family settled permanently in Bellingham, bringing him closer to comics. After moving, Pete subscribed for weekly comic book pick-ups at King Arthur’s Book Shoppe and The Comics Place.

Pete’s collecting never really stopped, it formed into a habit for him.

Research done by William D. Mcintosh & Brandon Schmeichel found that collectors tend to settle into a behavioral pattern of collecting. Collectors plan out and hunt their next addition, and when they finally do catch what they were looking for they move on to something else to catch.

This is the exact behavior Pete developed over his 45 years of collecting.

The only time Pete paused his collecting was during his five years in the army, as the comics would not be “safe” during his training in Panama and Egypt. He also said that he would make a down payment to still get his comics during that time as well.

In the ’80s Pete attended an early comic convention at the Seattle Space Needle.

Seeing a group of passionate comic collectors inspired Pete to continue his collection. His only regret with the event is that he missed out on getting signatures from talented members of the industry that have died since. Being connected to comics has also let him meet well-known figures in the comic industry, such as the creator of Wolverine at a restaurant in 2006.

A majority of the comics Pete bought during the ’70s were around 30 cents which is about $2.33 now with inflation. However, a lot of older comic books hold more value than just $2.33.

Mcintosh & Schmeichel’s research presented the idea that collectors fall into four different categories. The four categories are the passionate collectors, the inquisitive collectors, the hobbyist and the expressive collectors.

The one Pete falls into would be “the hobbyist,” those who collect for pure enjoyment. He could be considered a “passionate collector,” due to his emotional connection to the hobby, but passionate collectors also continue collecting no matter what the price is on the item.

Pete admits there are a few comics that he wished he bought as a kid but currently has no plans to get them now due to the price.

Because he has been collecting since childhood, part of Pete’s collection has become highly sought after. An example of this is one of the first Black Panther issues from 1977, which according to price charting, can cost up to $912 for a mint condition copy or even up to $2,000 for rarer editions of it. These high prices are attached to 9.8 graded copies of it. A collectible that’s graded a 9.8 by places like Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) means that it is a “like-new” copy, with very few signs of use.

Pete said the value of comics “feels funny” to him, but he did bump up his homeowner’s insurance just in case something happened. Pete’s passion for comics and nerd culture led him to join Cosmic Games as a manager in 2005.

Cosmic Games, formerly known as Cosmic Comics, rebranded in 2018 when the new owner Adam Scholtz decided to stop carrying comics at the store. Despite that, Pete still gets calls from people offering to sell their collection. In these cases, the comics are bought by Pete for his personal connections and not on behalf of Cosmic Games.

Cosmic Comics also happened to be the same store where Pete would pay $300 to cover comic subscriptions during his time in army training and airborne school.

When Pete returned from training, he owed a lot of money. He said via email that he made the decision to take a sabbatical from comic books as he “didn’t know what life would be like moving forward.”

During that time, he would occasionally stop into Cosmic Comics to say “hi” but never bought anything. His sabbatical lasted for two years after becoming a civilian. It broke when he read Outsiders and Teen Titans #1 — both deal with the continuity of family and friendship. Since the passion was reignited that day, Pete has never looked back.

Despite the amount of money selling parts of his collection could provide, Pete says he has never considered selling his comics.

“It’s more of a passion rather than an investment” he said.

During the 1990s, Pete knew of people that were buying comics solely because they believed they could sell them for a high profit in a few years. These types of collectors were given the name “inquisitive collectors” according to Mcintosh & Schmeichel’s research.

Pete’s passion for comic books has rubbed off onto other people around him, specifically his wife, Martha Redpath. She enjoys joining him on his hunts for comics and “seeing his excitement.” She attempted to get into the comics a few years ago but it was not her “cup of tea.”

When asked about her connection to the hobby, she said, “It’s not my arena, but boy I stepped into it.”

Martha often goes with Pete when he hunts for comics. Before meeting Pete, Martha was never a big fan of comics (aside from seeing the Marvel and DC movies). It was through being with Pete for 15 years that Martha was able to meet celebrities like the late Leonard Nimoy and Stan Lee at Emerald City Comicon. Comicon even inspired Martha to start “soft collecting” postcards made by artist Jey Parks, whom she met at the convention.

At night, Martha sometimes struggles to fall asleep. To help her sleep, she’ll ask Pete to tell her stories from comics.

“He doesn’t even open a book, just tells me the story from memory,” Martha said. “He’s really good at that.”

Despite Martha having no initial interest in Comics, she still finds joy in the hobby through Pete.

“My first year going to a convention I just loved watching him — the excitement that he had going around,” Martha said. “You can find ways to enjoy it, even if it’s through watching others.”

To this day, Pete still heads down to The Comics Place in Bellingham’s central business district every Wednesday to pick up comics.

With the growing popularity of comics and Pete’s undying love for comics, he shows no signs of stopping collecting.

When asked about how to get into the hobby of collecting, he mainly recommended buying trade paperbacks (collections of several comic issues into one) or visiting the local library.

He also suggested the online website Comixology, although he warns that it’s a “different feeling” from owning physical copies. Digital comic collecting is on the rise, yet it is nowhere near the level of collecting physical copies.

Years from now, Martha and Pete plan to hang up a picture of the late Stan Lee reading stories to young children in a grandchild’s playroom. Like Stan Lee’s iconic legacy, the Redpaths aspire to ignite a passion for storytelling within the hearts of their grandchildren.

A marvelous hobby was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Isabella Loy

Cramped shelves full of breakable relics, an old-timey ringtone echoing through the air and an atmosphere unlike any other await customers as they stroll into the glass doors of Penny Lane Antique Mall in the heart of Old Town, Bellingham.

Though it is one of about a dozen antique shops in town, the size of the store, the loyal vendors and the family-owned aspect are just a few of the characteristics that make Penny Lane stand out.

Thousands of antiques crowd the bright-red building on Holly Street, each with its own price tag and backstory.

Owning an antique mall

The story of this business may be just as interesting as the things within. Right after graduating high school, founder Lyndsey Burglund opened Penny Lane in an old train car in Fairhaven. She ran the place alone — just herself and her antiques — for a decade.

“[I] did the first little store for a couple years and then had an opportunity to buy the store next to Old Town Cafe,” she said. “And so I moved over there and then ran that full-time.”

Once she outgrew that storefront, Berglund relocated to the building that was home to Old Town Antique Mall — which had been an antique business since the mid-’80s.

“In 2011, it became for sale by a friend of mine and my brother’s,” Berglund said. “She’d run it for a long time, was successful, but she was passing away.”

At that point, Berglund took on a business partner: her brother, Matt.

“I went from, you know, working by myself for 10 years and buying and selling all my own things to [having] a business partner, staff and vendors,” she said.

Berglund splits responsibilities with her brother — she works Friday through Sunday, and Matt works during the week. Not having all the responsibility on her has allowed Berglund to focus more on family, and she can now mix her work and family life comfortably.

“This is a good part of my job,” she said, smiling down at her son as he babbled on her lap. “I get to bring my kids to work. It really lets me just, kind of, do my thing. I’ve gotten to a point where I can make my own hours and bring my baby to work.”

Along with the typical antiques, Berglund and her brother sell new items, too, including posters, plants and stickers. Another highlight of her job is being able to set up displays with the new items and create a welcoming, aesthetically-pleasing atmosphere.

“Decorating is always fun,” she said. “Curating little displays — that’s one of my favorite parts of the job.”

All other items at Penny Lane are sold by vendors who rent out spaces within the store. They price their own items, receiving funds as things sell. This model allows for a mutually beneficial relationship; vendors make more sales under a well-known storefront, and Penny Lane takes a small percentage of each sale.

“We have about 40 people renting spaces, selling their own things, and then my brother and I have, you know, a good majority of space where we sell our own things,” Berglund said.

This is a common practice in antique and vintage shops, according to a peer-reviewed study published in Sociological Spectrum titled “Dealers and Dealing in an Antique Mall.” The authors explain that an attractive aspect of antique selling is that vendors do not need to be with their items at all times, rather, they can come and go as they please — restocking as needed.

Booth 45

Sandra Martinez runs booth number 45, a two-sectioned booth on the right side of the store, inches away from the cash register.

Martinez hauls her items up to Bellingham from her home near La Conner. She pulls her white SUV up to the doors of Penny Lane about once a week and spends hours unloading her acquired finds.

Once unloading is finished, Martinez has to organize — another perk to the selling model of Penny Lane: booths are organized and set up by each vendor, adding charm and variety and making every one unique. Walking into a new booth can feel like walking into an entirely new store with a different inventory.

“We make sure everything is user-ready,” she said. “So I clean everything, my husband redoes most of the furniture, so it’s all just ready to go.”

Martinez, with help from her husband, started selling antiques out of a small space in Skagit County more than 15 years ago. She and her antiques have been occupying the building even before Berglund owned it, back when it was known as the Old Town Antique Mall.

“We always shopped vintage and antiques and furnished our home that way,” she said. “So it just kind of was a natural progression to, you know, sell the things that we didn’t need anymore.”

Searching through estate sales, thrift stores, garage sales — these are just a few of the ways Martinez spends her days and sources her items.

“I do this full-time now,” she said. “I didn’t start out that way but the surprising thing to me, and I think to most dealers when they get into it, is really how much time it takes.”

As a full-time dealer, Martinez gets to devote all of her time to her passion for treasure hunting.

“I’m just always looking,” she said. “Sometimes I’m surprised, like, ‘How did I come up with that?’ … But it’s just a few things everywhere you go.”

Booth 12

Mirabelle Lemieux, a 26-year-old vendor whose specialties are art pieces and vintage clothing, daylights as a gardener at Western Washington University. She can often be seen at Penny Lane with her sandy-blonde hair pulled back, wearing a WWU hoodie and dirt-stained boots, organizing her booth.

Lemieux moved to Bellingham six years ago and was first hired as an employee at Penny Lane — kickstarting her interest in antiques and vintage items.

“I started working the cash register, and that’s how I started getting to know more about resale and understanding what vintage means, what antique means, how to identify that,” she said. “And then I would slowly bring my stuff in to Lyndsey and sell to her and she offered me a space.”

As a Western employee, Lemieux sometimes gets to see her items around campus, each experiencing a new styling with a new owner.

“I’m selling [and] aiming at my age group just because I know what I like to wear and I assume other people probably like to wear this, too,” she said.

There are a few core components to the appeal of shopping in an antique mall for customers of all ages: the search for authenticity, the yearning for connection and community and the feeling of nostalgia, according to the study in Sociological Spectrum.

Antique shops can profit off of the idea that an item can be loved again — particularly with sentimental pieces. If someone finds an item that sparks a memory — perhaps a salt and pepper shaker that sat in their grandmother’s kitchen during their childhood — that item holds value to them, even if others may scoff at the price tag.

“Sometimes, I think, you can hear complaints about the prices but there’s a reason these used clothes cost more because they have a story,” Lemieux said. “They’re from a time period, they’re rare, they’re unique.”

Lemieux hand-writes each tag in her booth, with a detailed description and price — unlike a printed, generic tag one might see at a chain establishment.

“It’s kind of cool that you kind of get to give these things a second chance, a second life and a new home.”

Though she enjoys it as a hobby, Lemieux emphasized that sales at Penny Lane also have a financial impact on her life.

“I think people sometimes don’t realize that these are the way people feed themselves and pay their rent,” she said.

Nostalgia behind the chaos

Penny Lane means a lot of things to a lot of different people. It means a full-time job to Martinez, a side gig to make some extra money and fulfill a passion for Lemieux, a family business for the Berglunds. To the majority of Bellingham residents, though, it’s a big red building on the side of the road with weeks worth of stuff to look through.

The overwhelming amount of items can be intimidating, but discovering something that holds meaning might be worth the time it takes to find it.

“The people who have these booths have done all the work to curate something and bring it to you in an accessible form,” Lemieux said.

The 40 vendors inside each have a unique story, ones that would, too, take weeks to sort through. Their devotion to the art of antiquing is what makes Penny Lane itself a must-see relic.

Endless knickknacks and oddities was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Liz McLane

When you wander through your memories, what do you find?

For me, it’s this:

I’m 6 years old. It’s hot in the car. We’re in Yakima for my parents’ annual soccer tournament. I’m eager to watch them play together. Dad’s playing Rush through the speakers, playing air guitar. Mom’s reading in the passenger seat. As we pull into the field’s parking lot, I grab my juice and Annie’s cheddar bunnies, ready to cheer my parents on.

I’m 8. I’m sitting on the grass next to a sideline, wearing my pink spring-season jersey. My fingers are sticky from the halftime oranges and Chewy bars. Mom, in her coach voice, lectures my team about defense skills.

I’m 16. My team has an away game at Oak Harbor High School, so the drive is long. I’m sipping on an AMP energy drink. I get everyone on the bus to scream along to Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.”

Ask me to think about my childhood memories and a lot of what I come up with is soccer. I played on teams all through elementary, middle and high school. I would play through the freezing cold rain in March and heat waves in the summer. I wore many hats: team captain, bus speaker DJ, and, when I got my license, carpool queen.

And when it wasn’t soccer, it was volleyball. Or skiing. I had a short-lived basketball career, too. I even went through a tennis phase (the best part was my pink racket).

I was an athlete, through and through. Sometimes on a court, or a mountain, but mostly on the field. Soccer was the scaffolding of my youth. Everything — my relationships with family members, my self-esteem, my ideas about fitness and exercise, my approach to friendship, my thoughts on the weather — the beautiful game informed it all.

Then, about four years ago, my family made the 90-minute drive from Shoreline to Western Washington University in Bellingham. They dropped me off at the Fairhaven dorms, and I started college.

I didn’t join any intramural teams; by the time I knew anyone that played the sports I did, the pandemic had begun and my opportunity was gone. Before school went online, I had visited the Wade King Student Recreation Center a few times with my roommate, Erica. Unfortunately, our typical routine — a 30-minute run on a treadmill followed by a Pinterest-sourced six-pack ab circuit — was just not giving me the same satisfaction as my favorite game.

So, I turned to other stuff. I learned how to make really good banana bread, hosted Zoom movie nights and made collage art in my parent’s backyard. I started taking my first journalism classes online, became obsessed with creative non-fiction books, tried to grow lettuce and failed to eat all of the lettuce I grew.

We all have different “domains” of our identity. I think of them as the building blocks of our personhood. My domains have pulled me in a lot of different directions in my life — I love to cook, write, make art, sea kayak, garden, and yeah, play sports. But when I got to college, I renegotiated my relationships with all of these parts of me, and my identity shifted from being a student-athlete to a journalism student who wanted to spend time identifying plants and reading.

This is a defined phenomenon called identity renegotiation. The concept is highly relevant in the case of student-athletes who discontinue participation upon entering college — a lot of people play sports in high school, but about 94% of high school athletes will not participate at an intercollegiate level. That’s a lot of kids losing a big part of their identity.

In a study done by the Utah State University Families in Sport Lab and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, researchers found that while it’s common to experience a sense of loss upon the transition, the acceptance of a new identity also begins to grow as former athletes transition into a life without competitive sports.

That did happen for me, but it hasn’t been easy. For me, the sense of loss was profound.

The primary driver of this feeling was my experience of a shifting body. My legs, which used to propel me up and down the field and swing hard at the soccer ball, had grown thicker and less toned. My stomach grew, and my chest did too. My hips got wider. My jeans got tight, and it was difficult to even walk up the stairs without becoming out of breath.

It felt so weird, but it was pretty simple — the changes I experienced were the result of my becoming a woman, my genetics, and, of course, the fact that I wasn’t focusing on training my body for competitive sports on a daily basis. It became a hard reality to grasp, and it still is.

So, to learn how to move forward, I began to look more at my past.

As I wandered through my memories again, I found myself in Tukwila, at the Starfire Sports facility. When I was a kid I would sit on the sideline of a field, usually with a coloring book or my math homework, and watch my parents play co-ed adult soccer.

After spending a day working at the library, Mom would run up the stairs to her room, only to come running back down them two minutes later with a big T-shirt, shorts and knee-high soccer socks on. Dad, who would already have packed his gear in the morning, would be ready for us to pick him up at the office on our way to their Tuesday night games. Sometimes I wanted to go and watch them play, but other times I wanted to stay at home with my brother and watch TV.

Whenever I did go, I spent a lot of time alone, watching the game, and thinking about how my parents’ soccer games didn’t look as fun as mine. In my 11-or-12-year-old brain, it wasn’t “real” soccer if there were no Chewy bars at halftime, or if they never practiced together. It wasn’t real soccer if they didn’t have matching uniforms, or if they didn’t keep an accurate score. To me, all of the people my mom and dad played against were old, slow and stinky. I just didn’t really get it.

But, now I do, and I have to laugh at my younger self, just a little.

If anything, the soccer they were playing was the most real stuff around. Pure fun. To my parents, soccer has never been a competition to win, or a means to an end for being in shape. My parents fell in love after they met playing soccer against each other. To them, soccer is love, friendship and family. They let me in on that, and those things will always be a part of my identity. Non-negotiable.

This spring, during my last quarter of college, I found myself returning to the sport I once loved. On Wednesdays, I play six on six intramural soccer with a rag-tag group of friends from my pizza shop job. So far, we’ve lost every game, and I’ve found myself winded after dribbling for even 30 seconds. I’ve learned that I definitely need to buy a new sports bra. Despite all that, I leave the field smiling, every time.

We’re all humans. We’re meant to move, to sweat, to be part of a team. There are a lot of ways to do that, and to do it for joy, love and connection. For me, joyful movement comes in the form of running around the field with my family, my friends, or even strangers. What does it mean to you?

Soccer raised me. Then, I abandoned it. was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Chauncey Gummere

“No way, you don’t look that old,” “I never would have guessed that,” “I thought you were 20.” A new classmate has said a variation of one of these statements to me every quarter since arriving at Western Washington University.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” sums up my response every time — a response that has become truer after every utterance of it.

This is my last quarter on campus, I am graduating, and I am 30 years old…

In a sea of people, each person is so uniquely different that they appear as generic blurs as I pass them. I don’t mosey or stop to idly chat as I pass the countless faces that are moving across campus. I move with a purpose; college is an objective, not a social opportunity.

When I compare my experience to those around me, the people who went from high school to college — the people who fit the ideal of an average student — I realize I never had a normal college experience.

Between homeschooling and Running Start, I skipped a lot of typical high school experiences. My first experience with college had me surrounded by people much older than me. I was too young to take part in the college social experiment. By the time I was handed my associate degree I was barely an adult with no clue what to do with it.

There was an ocean of living between getting that degree and pursuing my bachelor’s degree.

I met the love of my life. Lost my mom. Got married.

I worked dead-end jobs. Served my country. Had my eyes opened.

So much life.

I took a short hiatus between the Army and returning to college, and it is a good thing I did because there is a degree of whiplash from social expectations that you go through transitioning from soldier back to civilian. While there is a more subtle, but similar, transition from civilian to student, I don’t think I could have survived the jump from soldier all the way to a college student. Straight out of the Army, I was not yet relaxed enough to just go with the uncertainty of everyday life on campus.

I had lived so many experiences to end up back at a place where the majority are people who have just entered adulthood. Being surrounded by all these clean slates can feel isolating — having roughly a decade of additional life experiences sort of makes you an outsider.

“I definitely feel a bit more like an outsider at an undergrad program,” said Myles Weber, a 29-year-old journalism student at Western who is also graduating this year from the public relations track. “I find myself with the ‘I remember when I was your age’ thing or ‘I remember when I was going through that’ kind of thing.”

Our experiences separate us from the masses, and those experiences have shaped what is important to us.

“Things that seem important to me now are more serious and less fun,” Weber said. “I’m just feeling more aware that time is ticking, the clock, the clock is running, and I have to move with more intention to have the life I want at this point.”

The clock is ticking.

I felt this more than ever last winter quarter as a professor informed my class that ‘we are young, we have time to make mistakes and try things out, it’s not until we’re 30 that we have to start to worry.’

I turned 30 two weeks after that lecture.

That ticking clock makes us more driven and more goal-oriented — our actions are forced to be more calculated and intentional. At times the mechanical task-oriented way of moving through college can seem as if I am missing out on the experience and perhaps in a way I am and that is OK.

At a certain point in life, I think the idea of college loses its social appeal and naturally becomes this place to further a skillset. For me, that was finding a way to turn my passion for writing into a career that would provide for my wife and I. This is how I came to be on the PR track, dancing that line between corporate communicator and idealistic writer.

A 16-year-old me would have been more worried about being liked and making friends than getting good grades. Now at 30, I am just worried about getting enough job experience in the field of my degree because I know “good” jobs expect me to already have a decade of experience on top of my four-year degree.

Even though I didn’t spend my time socializing, I did however make a friend — someone I hope will be in my life for the rest of my days.

I think this happened because in the end, no matter the number of years separating any of us, or the experiences that separate us, we are all at college to better our lives in one way or another — those experiences don’t make us separate, they make us unique.

There is something special about having lived so much life before undertaking the undergrad experience — I feel like I am witnessing the future firsthand. I might have gone through more life experiences than these ‘kids’ but they are teaching me so much.

Being around the next generation has taught me a lifetime more about compassion, diversity and consideration for the people I share this world with.

Now to learn any of it, I need a translator as the slang has changed extensively.

I am graduating at 30 but my life is just getting started. And I have all of you to thank for that.

Feeling old school was originally published in Klipsun Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.